In Dublin 15, councillors want to name a park for a local cycling legend

A landmark somewhere in Dublin 15 should be renamed after celebrated cyclist Bertie Donnelly, says Labour Party Councillor Mary McCamley. 

A park or maybe a road, she said, at a meeting of the council’s local area committee on 4 December. 

Donnelly ran a pub in Mulhuddart for years, she said, and his cycling achievements are worth remembering.

"We have our own very famous cyclist, and nothing has been done,” McCamley said. "It is a brilliant story, and we are not recognising it, nor are we celebrating it.”

McCamley read out Donnelly’s achievements – the tens of races, both national and international, that he won through his lengthy career. 

Councillors at the meeting maybe knew his name, she said, as it was also the name of the pub, which closed its doors not too many years ago. 

“I think if anybody lived or went through Mulhuddart, they would have seen the pub called Bertie Donnelly,” she said. “It was there for years and years and years.”

McCamley pointed to other lost landmarks in the area, including the old stone bridge from 1885 which has been dismantled and put into storage.

“Now we’re not celebrating the things that we should be celebrating in our area,” she said. 

She suggested renaming Damastown Park, just behind the old pub site, in honour of Bertie Donnelly.

Renaming a park after Donnelly, though, might not be possible just now because of legal problems with the renaming process nationally. 

Or, at least, that’s what Dublin city councillors were told recently when they tried to change the name of Herzog Park and name a park after Terence Wheelock. And, in Cork, councillors ran into similar trouble trying to rename Bishop Lucey Park. 

More permanent

Donnelly was born in 1894. He was “the most successful Irish cyclist in the inter-War years”, according to the Cycling Ireland Hall of Fame web page.

He won 61 Irish national track titles between 1921 and 1940, it says. He set four Irish records and represented Ireland in the Olympics and World Championships, it says.

An obituary in the Irish Times in 1977 described Donnelly as a “father figure” of Irish cycling, who would come out and chat with schoolboys and seniors competing in races that started and ended in Mulhuddhart.

He considered winning the British championship in 1935 as the high point of his career, the article said. “I don’t think I have ever been so near dying with effort,” he was reported as saying at the time.

Solidarity Councillor John Burtchaell said he knew the pub that bore Donnelly’s name – which later became the Shanty.

“I was actually a regular in Bertie Donnelly’s as a child, if you can call a child a regular in a pub,” he said. Photos of Donnelly lined the walls.

The pub had also been a starting and finishing point for cycle races over the years McCamley said – including for her own brothers. 

McCamley had raised the idea of the naming before about 10 years back, she says. “And nothing ever happened.”

This time she wants movement. Councillors chimed in, agreeing with the motion.

"This is an excellent idea,” said Fine Gael Councillor Ted Leddy.  

Donnelly’s descendents remain in the area, Leddy said. “You know, I was actually taught by a granddaughter of his in school. I'd be friendly with some of her kids.”

Leddy said he is on the council’s naming committee, and area councillors should formally write to the committee so it lands on the next agenda, he said.

Said Fianna Fáil’s John-Kingsley Onwumereh: “This is really practical heritage, which, you know, to a large extent we don't often highlight well enough.”

 Schoolchildren could learn about a local figure whose achievements were positive, he said.

Labour Councillor John Walsh called it “an absolute no-brainer”. 

Dublin 15 doesn’t do enough to mark its own history, Walsh said. “I would have known very little about him. And I think we need to remedy that.”

Ciara O hAodha, a senior executive officer at Fingal County Council, told councillors that the motion would go to the naming committee in early 2026. “We will convene them in January,” she said.

McCamley told management she didn’t want the proposal to sit idle for another seven years.

Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.